


5 feelings that definitely aren’t love (and one that – maybe (definitely) – is)

by Stinacat



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, This has been sitting around a while, Turnhay, fic clearout yaaay, turnwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:48:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4896934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stinacat/pseuds/Stinacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because just saying it is too simple, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. Intrigued

Meg barrels into his life with the same ferocity she does most things with. He’s not super involved with any of the higher goings on at Rooster Teeth, which is fine; he doesn’t particularly want to be. All Ryan knows is that one day Meg isn’t a constant presence at the studio – but he’s seen her around a few times, a flash of red hair and a bright smile, met her for the first time very briefly at Michael and Lindsay’s wedding – and then the next day she’s peering into the office saying hi to Geoff and Gavin like they’re old friends (he finds out later that they are, from way back somehow) and visiting with everyone else.

Meg startles a laugh out of him while she’s talking to Jack and Ray, and she flashes that thousand megawatt grin right at him.

Ryan feels a bit like he’s been slapped around the face. In the best way. It crosses his mind that he’d let her slap him around the face but he’s already internalising a groan at that thought. It’s not like she’d be interested anyway – he’s sure Gavin or someone is much more her type.

-

She always pokes just her head into the office before the rest of her (Ryan definitely hasn’t noticed it, or course not) and that one particular day he’s the only one in the office. Meg flashes him a smile. “I missed everyone for lunch, didn’t I?”

He gives her a rueful grin. “Just me here, unfortunately.”

Meg doesn’t even miss a beat. “Well you need to eat, don’t you? Wanna get lunch?”

It’s not her forwardness he’s taken aback by – he expects it from her, by now - it’s that it doesn’t make him feel like an afterthought. She sounds like she’s perfectly happy to get lunch with him instead of the group (they’d waited for her, and for Ryan for a while, but she’d been busier than expected and Ryan had wanted to finish the editing he’d been stuck on all morning before it crashed again). “I mean…sure. Where d’you wanna go?”

Meg shrugs. “I don’t mind…we can go somewhere you like?”

It’s the beginning of their lunch days, and the beginning of the shit Ryan gets from the rest of the office. He complains – good naturedly – to her about it one day and it gives her a different kind of smile on her face. It’s the first time Ryan really starts to think _maybe_.


	2. 2. Unsure

There’s a strange period of time between the first time they kiss and when they _actually_ start dating. The first time they kiss feels like a secret, at a fort party that Geoff invites them all to on Griffon’s behalf. It’s the in between time where summer’s winding down and the leaves are starting to go crisp, evenings aren’t quite as sticky and the heat isn’t so overwhelming.

Meg’s got his jacket on by the fire, because she hadn’t expected the cold, and they’re sharing one of the log seats – much comfier than Ryan anticipated – Griffon carved for the occasion. Michael and Lindsay are across from them arguing good-naturedly in the way they do, and while it’s not uncomfortable, there’s _some_ kind of silence that’s fallen over Ryan and Meg.

Michael drags Ryan into the argument that has a wry smile on Lindsay’s face, and then Meg wanders into the big barn. He watches her go; he thinks subtly, until Lindsay extricates herself from Michael – he goes off to find Geoff and Gavin anyway – and settles next to Ryan instead. They don’t spend as much time together as they used to, huddled in their little pair of desks in the hangar at the old office, but Ryan will always have a warm place in his heart for Lindsay. She never actively mothers the group, but he knows she cares and she’s watching them all the time to make sure they’re all okay.

“You should just go for it, you know.” He’s not sure what she’s talking about, and it must show in his face. Lindsay rolls her eyes, still patient. “With Meg.” She clarifies, eyebrows raised like she’s expecting him to argue.

Ryan just sighs and pokes at the fire. He doesn’t know where to start explaining to Lindsay that he wants their friend like he’s never wanted anyone else in the world. That he _aches_ just thinking about the maybes and the could-be’s and the what-ifs. But he’s scared of the possibilities. “Probably.”

Lindsay looks confused. “So what’s the problem, what are you waiting for?” She digs a little deeper. Really, if Ryan were going to tell anyone, it would probably be Lindsay.

He starts with the shallowest point. “Have you seen her?” He asks incredulously, raising an eyebrow and resting his chin in his hand as he turns to look at Lindsay.

“I swear to god if you give me the ‘she’s out of my league, I can’t possibly, I’m just going to torture myself over here on the sidelines and pine my days away’ schtick I will beat you over the head with something. There’s plenty of wood out here and I’m sure plenty of places to bury a body.”

Lindsay looks scary, Ryan decides. He wasn’t dead set on that being the speech he gave her anyway. He opens his mouth and closes it a couple of times, trying to decide what to say. “I…You’re getting like, Michael levels of rage-y.”

“It was the only pre-nup we signed before the wedding, rage transfer.” She says without missing a beat.  Ryan can’t do much but laugh, and she gives him a smile. “Real talk though, a little birdy tells me it’s definitely a great idea.”

He looks back into the fire because he doesn’t know what to say. “Is the little birdy’s name Gavin, by any chance, because I don’t believe a word that comes out of his mouth.” Gavin’s been nudging them, in the most subtle way Gavin knows.

Lindsay huffs in frustration and turns more fully to face him. “No, bitch, the little birdy is Meg. For fucks sakes. Go and find her immediately. Do what you gotta do.”

So really, it’s on Lindsay’s advice that he wanders in to find Meg, weaving slowly through people he knows and people he doesn’t, stopping only to briefly chat with the more insistent of the former. He’s about to give up when he checks out the back door and she’s perched on one of the stools out there, head tilted up to the sky and being swallowed by his jacket.

Ryan hovers between the doorframe and the door, uncertain even though he trusts Lindsay not to lie to him. Meg looks like a goddess in the low moonlight, and he just watches her for a second. It feels lame when it comes out of his mouth, but she always does make him second guess himself like its high school and college all over again. “Hi.”

The smile she returns to him is soft. “Hey Ry. I’m sorry, did you want your jacket back?”

She starts moving to take it off and he shakes his head. “No, no. You’re fine. Just wondered where you’d got to.”

“Checking up on me Ry?” She says it with a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, head resting against the building but turned towards him. The shortened version of his preferred name (‘James is my dad, Ryan’s fine’) sounds familiar in her mouth. He likes it.

He leans against the building close to her, hands in his pockets just for something to do. “Something like that.” He feels a little sheepish, now that it’s (kind of?) coming down to it. He’s never been good at any of it, and Meg is an instigator – she doesn’t give out signals he’s used to anyway.

She just grins and shifts to rest her head on his arm, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to drape his arm over her shoulders so she’s against his ribcage instead. Later he’ll wonder if she could hear how quickly his heart was beating from the casual contact. “Sleepy?” He asks in a soft voice, looking down at the top of her head and _wanting_.

Meg’s arm snakes around his back, anchoring them together. “Something like that.” She murmurs, and Ryan’s hyper aware of where her fingers are pressing into his hip. She tips her head up to him and the smile on her face has gone soft. “Sit down Ry.”

Ryan’s sure he looks confused; there aren’t any more of the tall stools like hers. Meg shakes her head and gets up in a flurry of movement, pushing and pulling him until he’s in her former place, and then seating herself neatly sideways on his lap. He blinks at her. “That…works, I guess.”

She nestles her head into the crook of his neck, fitting herself against him like she was made for it – Ryan’s under no such delusions, the spot was made for her, he’s sure as soon as she settles there. “Course it does.” Meg goes quiet for a few seconds, and it’s still and mostly quiet, the noise from the gathering behind the solid walls. She breathes against him and her nose is cold (not unpleasant) and he realises in stages that he’s automatically holding her so that she won’t fall, and they’re very, very close.

And when she turns her head up to catch him looking down at her, it’s the easiest thing in the world (even though his heart is racing) to lean down and brush their lips together. It feels like the beginning and the end all at once. 


	3. 3. Scared

“We need to talk.”

Ryan has to try very hard not to whip around immediately and stare at Meg when she says it, because he knows his face will give away how he feels; that is, like his heart’s stopped, his stomach’s clenched and he’s been doused in cold water all at once.

Because, statistically speaking, the words ‘we need to talk’ have not gone well for Ryan, over the course of his life. They’re always the predecessor for something fucking awful.

And he doesn’t want awful, in this part of his life. Awful can stay everywhere else, in other parts of his life even, and out of the places in Austin that he and Meg have spent a very stress free six months in, thank you very much.

So when she says ‘we need to talk’ in a not quite solemn voice but still one that’s a lot more grave than he likes to hear from her – because she’s _Meg_ , Ryan could wax lyrical about how much _sunshine_ she is – his mind starts racing a million miles a minute while it feels like his body has just stopped.

His hand hovers over the mouse, about to click out of the game he’s testing for the office. He half turns around to look at where she is in the doorway to the study, hoping she won’t realise that he’s scared to look at her because he’s terrified of what might be on her face. “You want me to come now?”

“No you’re fine to finish what you’re doing, after that.”

It’s harder for Ryan to swallow than he thought it would be, it’s like his body needs a conscious effort to do things it should be doing on its own – it has been for 30 years, anyway.

“Okay.” He wants to tack on that he loves her on the end but again, he’s scared now that she’s about to tip his world on its axis.

He doesn’t get any more testing done for half an hour; too busy staring at the wall behind his primary monitor raking through his brain for what could have happened.

-

She’s sitting at the kitchen table in front of her laptop when he finally ventures downstairs. He’s thrown a shirt on despite the sudden first creep of Texas heat, because if it’s going to be a conversation he doesn’t want to contemplate, let alone have, Ryan figures fully clothed is probably the best way to have it.

Meg gives him a little smile but it’s tentative and not at all what he’s used to. “So I got an…interesting offer, today.”

Ryan’s heart sinks. She’d had a rough time, when she started, with comments and people outside not understanding that she fit perfectly. This is it, he thinks. She can’t take it anymore and she’s leaving Texas. Leaving _him_. He swallows. “Okay…”

She raises an eyebrow at him like she’s just noticed something’s wrong. “You okay?”

He wants to say no. He wants to ask why and he wants to beg her to reconsider all at once, but everything gets stuck in his throat as he settles across from her at the table. “Yeah…yeah fine. So what was the offer?”

Meg’s still watching him very carefully. “It’s uh…I mean I really want to do it, but I want you to know that if you’re not okay with it we can talk about it and-” She’s biting her lip in the way she does and her words are all coming out very quickly. “I got a call from Playboy, about doing a website shoot for them.”

The relief is nearly instantaneous, once he processes it. It starts as a little bubble in his throat but soon he’s laughing, leaning forward to rest his head on the table. “That’s it? That’s all it is? Jesus.” When Ryan looks up at her Meg just looks confused.

“I…it’s a big deal, to me.” She sounds small.

He sits up, already shaking his head. “Oh no no, it is, of course it is! I’m so happy for you, I just, I thought…” Ryan falters. Because it’s silly, looking back. Meg’s not the kind of person to let go of something she cares about without trying every way she knows to fix it first.

He can see the moment it clicks in her head, and it’s nearly simultaneous to the blush starting on his cheeks. “Oh my god baby, no!” Baby. He’d teased her about baby for a long time, but it’s grown on him, he quite likes it now. “I didn’t mean…I was just nervous, I didn’t know if you’d be comfortable with it, and…oh god damn it.” She jumps up from her chair and moves around the table to him, wrapping her arms around his head and pulling him against her where he’s sitting. “I’m sorry.”

It’s automatic, bringing his arms around her and nuzzling against her. “Don’t be. My dumb brain, right?”

Meg’s small fingers card through his hair, pushing it to the sides the way she likes it to sit. “I’m working on your big dumb brain and appalling sense of self-worth.” She reminds him wryly, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

Ryan isn’t sure how long they stay that way, just that she’s insinuated herself between his knees and she holds him, fingernails scratching against his scalp, until _he_ pulls away, and then when she smiles down at him it’s the softest thing he’s ever seen.


	4. 4. Frustrated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like a sex thing

He isn’t entirely sure when Meg figures out he has a thing for thigh high stockings. But she does. And Ryan isn’t sure if it’s the best or worst day of his life (but it’s definitely the best). She has a few pairs that are mostly for the bedroom (only because Ryan has self-control problems, and he’s not sure he can be around her in public wearing them. They _do_ things to him).

They spent a rare night apart at their individual houses, knowing they have a nearly full day of filming with each other at work it’s okay. But Ryan finds it strange being on his own in the house, because normally Meg’s right there. He doesn’t sit on the couch because it’s weird that she isn’t at the other end (or using him as a pillow).

Regardless, the point is he doesn’t see her until 10 in the morning, when they’re due to start Free Play.

And then he does, and he contemplates walking right back out of the makeup room and huddling down at his desk with his headset on for the rest of the day. Meg grins at him but there’s something secret right at the back of it, the way her cheek dimples just a little more – he knows it’s more of a smirk than a simple hello smile. Because she’s definitely done it on purpose, there’s no way she woke up and just forgot that they were filming together all day and thought the only time he’d see her is when he plants himself between her thighs before her shower that night. There is _absolutely no way_ that she’d innocently put on the opaque thigh highs with the fucking shorts she’s wearing.

Ryan gives her a look and quickly settles into the seat next to her, tracking her movements as she fixes her hair – in fucking pigtails, he could write a novel about how much she’s doing it to test him – and finishes her makeup. He tosses a look around the room, making sure they’re alone. “You are a fucking menace.” He says lowly, but it only makes her laugh, kicking one of her converse covered feet up against his jean clad calves.

“Oh come on, I gotta keep you on your toes sometimes.” She reasons, giving him her best innocent face.

Ryan sighs and is endlessly thankful he hadn’t spent more time mulling over wearing the tighter jeans she’d bullied him into buying that morning. As it is he’s going to be trying not to adjust himself just looking at her all day, nevermind that he knows full well what they normally get up to when she’s wearing those stockings. “I…”He draws the sound out around a sigh. Because he hates it, but he loves it, really. “I really hate you.” He declares, watching her stand up and desperately trying not to glance down at her legs, because it will be the fucking end of him.

Except she stands behind him and runs her small hands through his hair, mussing it on purpose just because she likes it that way. One of them tracks down his jaw to drape across his chest in a possessive gesture that he knows she feels but doesn’t express very often.  Meg settles her head next to his, enjoying the brush of his stubble against her cheek, and she looks at them next to each other in the mirror – makes him look with the hand still in his hair, fingers scratching against his scalp in a way that makes his neck tingle. “You don’t though.”

Ryan shakes his head in agreement, breathing in the light smell around her – musky, flowery perfume and coconut body butter, he can see the labels tucked away in his head the way they sit on her bedroom vanity.

He slides a bit further down in the chair as she kisses his cheek and leaves the room to go and see if the set’s ready; because in the line of sight of the mirror is the door, and the gap between the bottom of the well fitted shorts and the top of the stockings is suddenly the _single_ most tantalising and erotic spot he’s ever seen.


	5. 5. Content

Ryan’s not sure why it creeps up on him like it does, sprawled on the couch with Meg on his chest (because she’s had a rough day, and when they get home, all she wants to do is curl up and not say anything at all, just be close to him, and he’s not going to deny her that. He doesn’t think he could even if he wanted to).

Maybe he does understand, in hindsight.

Because he’s always been a cuddly person, he just never had anyone to hold the way he holds her. Not like she’s fragile (because she isn’t) but like she’s precious (because she is). And he hasn’t thought about it, but all of the things he’s stopped himself doing and hoping for years come seeping back into his life because of _her._

He looks down at the head of vibrant hair resting on his chest, in stark contrast to his grey shirt, one of his hands smoothing the strands gently because it’s soothing. And Ryan wants to tell her, wants to say all of the things bubbling up in his chest, feels like she’ll know what’s happening because she’ll be able to feel it underneath his skin, but everything gets stuck in the back of his throat.

Ryan wants to tell her he doesn’t like the (very) rare nights they spend apart, because he’s used to the shape of her in the bed next to him, and to waking her up gently in the mornings because she’s not a morning person at all but she’s not so bad if he curls around her back and kisses her neck.  Tell her that sometimes he just wants to hold her and nothing else and it’s the strongest urge he’s ever felt and even though it scares him he finds he doesn’t care.

There’s a lot to say about being content with someone.

He just doesn’t know how to say it.

Ryan leans up and kisses the top of her head instead, still wondering if she can feel the bubbles of it all under his skin with the wash of sunburst feeling that’s spreading through his chest.


	6. The one that definitely is

It’s the little things, Meg decides. It’s finally – _finally_ – convincing Ryan that continuing to pay rent on his apartment is stupid and he should definitely move in with her because all of his things have spent nearly a year migrating slowly to her house anyway. Finally getting him to let go of the safety blanket that she doesn’t even think _he_ realises he’s clutching onto.

It’s pretending to still be sleeping when he comes back from running in the morning (when she doesn’t go with him) so he’ll lean over the bed before he goes in to have a shower and kiss her temple, tell her it’s time to get up and he’s put coffee on downstairs. And knowing that he probably knows that she woke up not too long after he left because the bed got cold even though she’s cocooned herself in all of the covers and grabbed onto his pillow.

It’s having a conversation that doesn’t make her panic about having a family, one day, and the knowing look that Ryan gets in his eye about when to finish the conversation because it’s getting to be too much. He’s patient, he’ll wait. (maybe _not_ such a little thing, she thinks on reflection).

It’s having a _partner_ , not just a person. Although Ryan is her person in every way he can be. Sometimes she thinks it’s all too perfect – _he’s_ too perfect – and then she’ll step into the bedroom and his clothes are all over her chair. Or remember that for someone who has always had trouble having a discernible sleeping pattern he gets gradually more grumpy the less sleep he’s had, then he’s bitching about everything he could possibly bitch about until he falls asleep with his head in her lap and she _inevitably_ feels bad that she needs to move, because he wakes up every time. Accepting that if she leaves him be in his study for the evening she _needs_ to go in and drag him to bed at some point because he won’t ever look at the time.

But it’s the bigger things too.

It’s making herself let go of how hard it is to trust people, sometimes. She doesn’t have to be a lone wolf, doesn’t have to be so guarded, because Ryan doesn’t ever ask for anything but her trust. And realising it’s actually easy to give it to him; he’s never once made her question it.

It’s having someone who’ll stick up for her and be on her side even if it’s a losing battle, just because she’s her and he’s him and they’re them.

It always has been, she thinks, for better or for worse. Because neither of them are people who do things by halves. There’s a tiny part of her that wonders, sometimes, when it’s quiet and her brain has nothing to do but wander, if it was always going to be that way. If anything could’ve kept them apart.

She loves him more fiercely than she’s every loved anything, has watched him open up like the most brilliant of treasures (can practically see the rosy blush high on his cheeks if she ever said it out loud) and refuses to let him say she had anything to do with it. If she gives him a nudge here or there to remind him that he’s comfortable that doesn’t count.

It goes both ways, after all.

He’s her biggest supporter where she’s her biggest critic.

She has this realisation rush up on her in the doorway to the kitchen one morning before work, watching him play with Penny on the tiled floor with his hair over his forehead and a huge smile on his face. His glasses are perched on the end of his nose because he hasn’t put his contacts in yet.

Meg doesn’t know if he realises she’s there.

But it’s like a swell of emotion that simultaneously takes hours and seconds, crashing over her head and seeping all the way through her until she feels warm and a little bit like she’s on another plane of existence.

Meg crosses the kitchen quickly and snakes her arms around Ryan’s waist from behind, pressing her face against the space between his shoulder blades and squeezing her eyes shut. He jumps a little, surprised for all of two seconds before his arms cover hers.

“What’s up, are you okay?” There’s concern in his voice immediately as his fingers trail over her hands, stroking in a way that’s so soothing she doesn’t think he realises he’s doing it.

She holds him tighter so that he won’t turn around and Ryan just lets her mould herself against him. It’s hardly the most comfortable position in the world, because he’s kneeling on the floor and she’s halfway there, but Meg can hear the thud of his heart in her ear and more than anything it sounds so familiar that if she were any deeper in the hole of sappiness she’s apparently in when it comes to Ryan she’d say it sounded like home.

(It does).

“M’fine.” She breathes against his back, fingers curling against his chest. “I just…I love you.” Meg says softly. It’s not the first time she’s said it, definitely won’t be the last. But it seems like it has a lot more gravitas all of a sudden.

The little chuckle that Ryan puffs out is fond. “I love you too.” He shifts around so that he can pull her down to his lap on the floor, and she lets him, keeping her eyes down and fitting herself under his chin immediately.

Ryan kisses the top of her head and they sit like that for what feels like hours. In reality it’s probably 5 minutes before Penny comes nosing at Meg’s hand because how dare they not give her any attention when they’re both right there, and it’s just as well because they need to leave for work.

Still, when they split off in the parking lot so that Ryan can go straight into the Achievement Hunter building and Meg can get a coffee from the kitchen, he snags her by the sleeve and pulls her in close, wrapping her in his big arms and kissing her forehead. And she knows that he knows how she feels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a sappy piece of shit


End file.
